Mentor Sentences Unit: Daily Grammar Vol 1, First 10 Weeks (Grades 3-5)

Teaching your daily grammar lessons with the mentor sentences routine is the only way students will truly learn to apply grammar and language skills to their writing! No boring worksheets, lectures, sentences filled with mistakes, or rote drills that don’t stick…

These ready-to-teach mentor sentence lessons will have students working with one sentence from a favorite read-aloud mentor text in a different way each day for just 10-15 minutes!

Teachers who enjoy using mentor texts to cover content and maximize teaching time will love adding these mentor sentence lessons to their toolbox.

For each week’s lesson, you will guide students in discussion of the main focus on one or two grammar and language skills, but they are also exposed to new and previous grammar skills, too! This spiral learning truly makes an impact on their retention of grammar understanding and writing abilities. Students of ANY ability can use mentor sentences; because of the consistency, students know what to expect each day, and the spiral learning keeps those important skills in front of them week after week.

Students will work on revision skills each week. They will also imitate the author’s style and structure. Both of these steps in the mentor sentence routine help cement the transition of grammar, language, and style they’ve learned to their own writing.

Finally, use the formative assessments provided to find out what should be reviewed in future weeks.

*****************************************************************************

WHAT’S INCLUDED?

You don’t need to be a grammar guru to implement mentor sentences. When you purchase mentor sentences from Ideas by Jivey, you get a “cheat sheet” for all 10 weeks- all the work is done! I've even done all the thinking for you when it comes to revising and imitating!

Each lesson includes:

•the teacher sentence page for display

•the student sentence page to glue into notebooks

•a lesson plan page with answers for each day’s routine

•a formative assessment/quiz with answer key (provided in print and digital format) which also includes editing practice

There is a 9-page introduction in this FIRST unit with pictures included of how I use mentor sentences in my room (VERY detailed, day-by-day), followed by 10 lessons for the following books:

-First Day Jitters By Julie Danneberg

simple sentences, possessives

-Enemy Pie By Derek Munson

adjectives, subjects and predicates

-Saturdays and Teacakes By Lester Laminack

proper nouns

-My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother By Patricia Polacco

commas in a series, subjects and predicates

-Fireflies! By Julie Brinckloe

compound sentences

-Come On, Rain! By Karen Hesse

vivid verbs

-The Man Who Walked Between The Towers By Mordicai Gerstein

compound sentences, vivid verbs

-Verdi By Janell Cannon

comparative/superlative adjectives

-Stellaluna By Janell Cannon

apostrophes, quotation marks and dialogue

-I Need My Monster By Amanda Noll

quotation marks and dialogue

I chose books that would be in most personal libraries or school media centers. All of these are personal favorites of mine! Ideally, this unit would work best at the beginning of the school year (based on the books especially), but it could really be started at any point.

If you want to get all of the sets now to save money, you can buy the BUNDLE FOR THE WHOLE YEAR!

*****************************************************************************

WHY USE MENTOR SENTENCES FOR DAILY GRAMMAR PRACTICE?

Studies have shown that the “traditional method” of grammar workbooks, lectures, and diagramming is not only ineffective but can be detrimental to student writing! Grammar should be taught in context, NOT isolation.

Mentor sentences also help improve craft by revealing fantastic models of figurative language, descriptive words and phrases, and interesting sentence variation that they use as models for their own writing.

Mentor sentences allow students to soak up the language and grammar skills through noticing, conversation, and imitation, which in turn transfers to their writing.

Not familiar with mentor sentences? Read all about them here!

**Watch a video of Mentor Sentences in ACTION!**

If you need more proof that the numerous volumes of mentor sentence curricula created by Ideas by Jivey are a best practice in the classroom, download the case study! The download presents the data collected over the 2016-2017 school year in the form of a case study.

*****************************************************************************

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED?

There are COMPANION SETS to get the most bang for your buck with these mentor texts!

★ Volume 1, Unit 1 Interactive Language Arts Notebook Companion: includes an interactive activity for each focus skill in this mentor sentence set.

★ Volume 1, Unit 1 Vivid Vocabulary Companion: includes vocabulary activities to use the words IN CONTEXT from the same books in this mentor sentence set.

★ Volume 1 Mentor Sentences Modifications ADD-ON Pack: supports students with disabilities, English as a Second Language, or slow writers.

★ You’ll also love to use these mentor texts in reading and writing, too! Make sure to get BETTER THAN BASAL: Complete NO PREP Reading & Writing Units for 40 Popular Mentor Texts!

-OR-

★ Get the BIG bundle with all Volume 1 Mentor Sentences, Interactive Notebooks, Modifications, Vocabulary Activities, and Reading and Writing activities for all 40 mentor texts in the volume! Check out the Biggest and BEST Yearlong Bundle for Volume 1!

★ Check out these other separate mentor sentence mini-units to integrate other content!

*****************************************************************************

HELP ME PLAN!

You don’t need to do all of the mentor sentence lessons in the order they come in the units. When I created units 1, 2, and 3, I put them in the order I used them in my classroom, so these lessons are in an order that spirals and gets progressively more difficult, but it is not necessary to stay in that order. Unit 4 was created a year later as “extra” lessons with more of my favorite books that I used throughout the year.

There is a free download of the "At-A-Glance" for all 40 books in Volume 1! This download will help you see all of the skills covered in Volume 1 units if you’d like to “bounce around” within the units.

*****************************************************************************

WHAT ABOUT OTHER GRADE LEVELS?

There is a Volume 2 and a Volume 3 for grades 3-5 to help prevent repetition of mentor sentence lessons among grades in the same school.

Check out what’s in Volume 2!

Check out what’s in Volume 3!

Mentor Sentences can be done in ALL grades! Please tell your teacher friends about mentor sentences for their grade:

Kindergarten & ELL (Early Emergent Readers)

First Grade

Second Grade

*****************************************************************************

Please remember, this purchase is for the use of one teacher. It is not intended to be shared. Please use the 'additional license' purchase if more than one teacher will be using it. Thank you!

*The mentor sentence lessons I have created are adapted from the ideas of Jeff Anderson. These lessons were born from the routine that worked well in my classroom, and the demos and examples I present are variations of Jeff Anderson's methods. This is not the only way to "do" mentor sentences in your classroom.*

Copyright © Ideas By Jivey, LLC

All rights reserved by author, Jessica Ivey.

Permission to copy for single classroom use only.

Electronic distribution limited to single classroom use only.

Not for public display.

Leave feedback to earn credits for future purchases! Become a follower to receive updates about future mentor sentence units as well!